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EDITORIAL: Battle of the Highlands rages on

Published 10:59 a.m. ET June 11, 2017

submitted photo Diane Nelson, a member of the Upper Rockaway River Watershed Association, is a finalist in the Highlands Juried Art Exhibit on view until March 15 at the Morris County Atrium, second floor, at 10 Court Street in Morristown. Her photograph of the "Rockaway River Berkshire Valley" showcases one of the important water resources of the spectacular Highlands region that provides drinking water for more than half of New Jersey's population.(Photo: ~File photo)

Lawmakers have thrown up an expected roadblock to prevent the Christie Administration from generating more development in the preserved region of the Highlands.

We applaud the effort. New Jersey has a fight on its hands to protect our environment, and we need help from all available fronts.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has adopted a new rule change allowing for more septic tanks in the Highlands, an area of nearly 900,000 acres in which development was significantly restricted under the Highlands Act, enacted in 2004. The goal of the act was to protect a vital watershed providing drinking water for six million New Jerseyans. The rule change, however, would mean more new construction as well as an estimated 12 percent increase in septic tanks prone to leaking nitrates, a prime source of water pollution.

Protecting clean water is among the fundamental green initiatives in which Gov. Christie has shown little interest. President Trump similarly disdains the environment. The end result, as detailed elsewhere on Monday’s opinion page by Michele Byers, executive director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, is an assault on New Jersey air, land and water from both the state and federal government that must be confronted on every battlefield.

The state Assembly last week fired off a needed shot, therefore, approving a resolution declaring that the new septic density rules are inconsistent with legislative intent. It’s a rarely used maneuver, but clearly needed in this instance. That leaves the administration with a choice — to either amend the rule, or withdraw it. Potential amendments, however, will themselves be a likely source of contention.

The DEP insists the rule change is rooted in valid science and represents no meaningful threat to the Highlands watershed. There’s a certain irony to that, considering how much of what Trump is doing to harm the environment on the federal level — with no objections from Christie — essentially ignores science. That said, however, it’s not as if the DEP is somehow operating independently of Christie’s interests; there’s good reason to be skeptical of the DEP’s position on this.

Christie has sought to weaken Highlands protections throughout his tenure, packing the Highlands Commission that oversees development in the region with more anti-environment allies to do his bidding. The entire Highlands Act has been hampered from the beginning by the state’s failure to follow through with a pledge to compensate regional landowners in some fashion for the loss in property values that accompanied development restrictions. No mechanism was ever put in place to provide that compensation, and attempts to deliver on that pledge, including a proposed water tax, have gotten nowhere.

But as we have emphasized in the past, while the state does have an obligation to those landowners, the solution cannot be to reverse some of the sensibly conceived land protections in the Highlands. Those protections must stay in place; that’s the starting point. Increasing septic density doesn’t fit that plan.

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